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Amazon.com follows Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo to Madison Avenue Related Blogs Antiviral Art The Best Restaurant in New York Blackbag Defamer Disputations Documents Dodgeandburn Dog Domesticity Drugs Fine Vining Fortress America FrenchGawker Weird Internet Interviews Justice Morning After PhaseZero Politburo Rankings Gawker Review of Books Sausage Slowgawker Sony Hack One Man's Take The Cuck Themachines The Vane The West tktk True Stories Valleywag Amazon.com follows Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo to Madison Avenue 3.15K Nicholas Carlson 09/12/08 11:00AM Filed to: online advertising online advertising Amazon.com Microsoft Lisa Utzschneider hires Gawker Top Google's the undisputed king of Silicon Valley — but it's been wooing New York ad agencies nonstop, trying to break into the traditional part of the business, with mixed success. It's almost cute how all of its online rivals are following it. Amazon.com has hired a Microsoft ad sales exec, Lisa Utzschneider, as SVP of national ad sales. What, you thought Amazon sold books, not ads? Exactly the problem Utzschneider's being asked to solve: Amazon has been trying to sell ads for a long time, but they remain a small fraction of the retailer's revenue. A Madison Avenue agency executive tells us her hire is just the latest part in a methodical campaign by Jeff Bezos & Co. to beef up of its New York ad sales staff over the last four months.At Microsoft, Utzschneider managed search sales. The Peace Corps veteran also did a lot of charity work — a description which seems to fit Amazon's advertising efforts at present. Amazon already has products to sell: Clickriver, a self-service sales system like Google's AdWords, and Amazon Product Ads, an ad network like Google's AdSense. It's also trying to sell more ads directly on Amazon.com and IMDB.com. "Amazon has a huge audience that is undermonetized," Greg Smith, COO of interactive agency NeoAtOgilvy, tells us. A second source says, "This move isn't surprising, based on those efforts, because they have a long way to go if they want to evolve into a media company." Memo to Utzschneider: Bring more than just candy. Terms of Service Privacy Policy